


A Trip Down Memory Lane

by edgy_fluffball



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Howling Commandos, Happy Birthday Cap, M/M, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Steve Has To Get a Leash For Bucky, The Last Howlies, Turning 100 Years, a trip down memory lane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 10:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15168401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgy_fluffball/pseuds/edgy_fluffball
Summary: There are three old men who come to sit on one particular Central Park bench every other day. One of them is British. The other has an impressive moustache. The last one is blind. They remember, everyone a little bit. Neither can tell what they are missing.





	A Trip Down Memory Lane

**Author's Note:**

> So now our beloved Captain America is a proud onehundred years old. Congratulations, Cap! Thank you for making people better since you were a scrawny little guy in the streets of Brooklyn. Thank you for all you sacrificed.

If you work with stubborn people long enough, they are bound to rub off on you. The same applies to people you went through hardships with. Therefore, it was only reasonable that the three men who met up at one particular Central Park bench, spent hours bickering and playfully insulting each other. Passers-by threw them scandalised looks every time they roared out in laughter after having been told a saucy joke. They were landmarks of some sort – High Schoolers greeted them on their way home, some stopped to talk to them for a while; the men were happy to share their stories of days long gone. Mothers who pushed their kids around in prams were allowed to vent to them and at least once a day one of the men ended up calming down a crying child by pulling faces and rocking them. Busy business people almost jogging past them in their hurry to get from one place to another were ridiculed with the most spiteful imitations and comments imaginable, at least as long as they seemed to take themselves too seriously to share a brief smile with them.

Once in a while, someone comes along who recognises them.

They are mostly vets, people like them, albeit a little younger, it seems. The exhibition in D.C. put them back into the spotlight for a few moments. They got to leave their homes and families for the grand opening, the remaining few, praised by those who will never know what they gained, lost and gained again. Their pictures had been on the news, first their enlistment pics, then the new footage of three ninety year olds cutting a red ribbon, one of them leaning on the others, his eyes wet.

After that, there are questions from the school kids passing their bench on sunny days. Most questions are about the war, the Captain and his heroic deeds, the kids still idolise him. Too much, they’d say if asked.

Man, do they enjoy ruining the Captain’s perfect image in their eyes.

No embarrassing story is left untouched, no silly comment, no mishap remains untold. They tell the High Schoolers about how he blushed whenever one of the French waitresses flirted with him, that he never knew how to respond. They tell the Middle Schoolers that Captain America has a mouth not to be reckoned with, a potty mouth worthy of every soap ration they got. They recall all the times the Sarge threatened to wash the curse words off his tongue and their eyes glint. They boast in front of kindergarten and elementary school kids about how Cap needed them as much as his shield. Some of the parents ask questions as well: has Captain Rogers contacted them after he woke up? They get quiet after that question because no, he hasn’t.

‘How should he, he must’ve thought everybody gone,’ Monty says, ‘They are, to be fair. We’re the ones to stubborn to die.’

‘You’ve seen him on the news, straight back into the whole fighting business,’ Dum Dum adds, ‘He’s got worlds to save and other people to impress.’

He goes by Mr Dugan now, most of the time. His moustache is grey and his hands shake, but his voice is still deep and booming. He sings, sometimes, songs of longing and absence, and a few people stop at their bench. They listen to him whenever he does sing. It makes Morita emotional, his eyes well up as he joins in, voice husky with age, his eyes still twinkling long after finishing the song. And then there’s Monty who’s gone blind after his seventieth year. The tactician has Dugan and Morita pick him up from his care home and his smile is still brilliant and beaming when he hears them come in.

Sometimes, Morita’s youngest takes them to the park instead of them having to take the subway. He works in Queens as a High School principal, but he doesn’t leave out any opportunity to witness his father getting roasted by his oldest friends. And they never allow a chance elapse.

Their time in the park makes them happy. Dum Dum and Morita describe people to Monty, pointing out whatever seems important to them. Not everybody takes kindly to being called out by an old man exclaiming they walk with a stick up their backside.

Except, Dum Dum doesn’t say backside.

But then again, they are ninety and Monty’s not just blind, but hard of hearing, too. Should’ve been Dernier, they joke, but they buried their Demolitions Specialist in the Nineties. Sometimes, all protecting them from angry pedestrians and joggers is the fact that they are ninety, and you don’t attack ninety year olds. Then again, Dum Dum may be ninety and walking with a cane, but he still works out every day.

‘Who knows when it might come in handy,’ he says.

When it would come in handy, he is in hospital. He tells Monty and Morita that he got mugged when they first visit, too embarrassed to confess that he slipped in the bathroom. He watches the news on the TV in his hospital room though, he sees the helicarriers over D.C. He hears that Hydra had been there, through all those years. The nurses have to calm him down because he has seen the Captain fall, and he is crying hot, angry tears when Monty and Morita arrive. He keeps repeating that their Steve fell like his Bucky did and he wasn’t there to help, again. He struggles to breathe, lungs filled with hasty gasps that leave him feeling like he’s drowning. Again, he says, like Steve.

The last Howling Commandos sit together and talk, Morita gets his son to show them the news report again and again on YouTube. They watch Steve fall and swear to visit him, to tell him they are alive.

They never do because it is too hard, the news segment tricks them into remembering things that never happened as it is. They set aside the computer and switch off the TV when Morita has to blink away tears because he thinks he sees the Sarge looking down on Steve falling into the Potomac. No, they don’t turn up at Avengers Tower or the Compound Howard’s son installs somewhere else in the country.

Instead, they visit their girl. Peggy doesn’t remember them most of the time and cries, if she does. But Dum Dum sings to her and Monty makes her a cup of tea, exactly how she likes it. Afterwards, they walk back to Central Park and sit on their bench in silence. No one can capture how to deal with Peggy Carter crying because she can’t remember.

The questions start again, after the Triscelion is shut down completely and pronounced in danger of collapsing. Did you ever work for or with Secret Services? Have you seen the footage of Cap falling from that helicarrier-thing? Do you know if the Avengers are okay? And then, as everything seemingly reverts back to normal, they mourn their girl, kids ask about the war again, take photos of the three men on their bench or ask them to pass back a stray ball. At some point, Dum Dum starts narrating joggers again, making up stories to each person passing them to entertain Monty who starts asking stupid questions otherwise.

‘There’s a boy running around here…he’s passed us for the fifth time, he’ll just drop dead at some point. He’s got stamina, I’ll give him that. Wearing an army sweater.’

‘Leave him alone then, Dum Dum,’ Morita kicks him, ‘he looks decent. A nice boy. He’s probably just avoiding the masses in the streets or the pilgrimages towards the best firework-watching spots.’

The young man passes them for the sixth time, slower now. He is walking more than running, drenched in sweat because it’s warm enough to boil an egg on a car. Morita applauds him as he approaches.

‘Well done, son,’ his eager eyes follow the athlete as he goes to pick up his water bottle which he had left in the sparse shadow of a nearby tree, ‘Do you want to rest for a moment?’

‘Thank you, sir.’

As he comes closer, Dum Dum deciphers the badge on his shirt, ‘Pararescue, huh?’

‘Yessir,’ the man smiles and salutes lazily, ‘Been out a few years now, though.’

‘Us, too,’ Monty jokes and moves to make some space for the newcomer.

‘Please don’t, I’m good.’

‘Son, you just went for a run in this heat – you sit.’

The young man laughs and Dum Dum likes him even more for that. He obviously has a sense of humour, not unlike their own. It’s easy to laugh, now that they have survived so much, they laugh about small details in a bigger picture more than about satires, wise jokes or clever high society humour that Peggy would have enjoyed. It’s the old man insisting on a place to sit for the younger, fuck politeness and conventions, that cracks them up. You learn to enjoy everything, once you have fought for as little as the will to stay alive. Someone, probably Gabe or Dernier, had said they all were simply too stubborn to die. They were proven wrong, of course, when Barnes dies, and then Rogers went down after them. Their Captain, however, proved them right again, because by God, no man is as stubborn as Steven Rogers. Of course he had to survive. They see it as their duty to live, now that no one but them is left.

Dum Dum sighs, deep enough to make Monty turn. He is glad the Brit can’t see him, sometimes. He knows he’s tearing up again. Thank God for Morita who distracts their young companion, discussing something off the news with him. Dum Dum wipes his eyes. He feels Monty’s hand on his arm, squeezing, reassuring him. When he has composed himself again, he can listen to Morita speaking of Europe. The war. Of course, they don’t have many other topics to talk to strangers about.

‘May I take a photo of you?’ The young man has his phone at the ready, ‘I’m sorry, this must be weird. I can explain-‘

‘Happens more often than you’d think,’ Monty grins, ‘People think we are something we having been in a long time.’

‘That’s not – I really…It’s just…I have this competition with a pal of mine. My codename in the force was somewhat bird-related. He sends me pics of pigeons all the time, asking if they are related to me. Which led to me responding with pics of…seniors. He’s a bit older than me, it’d silly. But then again, nothing can top three World War Two vets, right?’

This has Dum Dum belting out a laugh. He remembers Barnes’ pointing at any random red squirrel they came across, asking if he had no shame to ignore his grandmother like this or whether he’d like a moment with his sister. Dum Dum had taken him into a headlock every time until Barnes called for the Captain to come rescue him. He smiles, the memory feeling just out of reach for him to hold onto. It happens more and more often with every day.

‘Man, he’s going to freak out. He’ll kill me, and his boyfriend will assist him,’ the young man seems to catch himself a moment later, eying them warily.

Monty laughs, ‘Is he contemplating whether we are homophobic assholes?’

‘Definitely,’ Morita pats the young man on the shoulder, ‘Don’t worry, son. We’re as liberal as can be. Hell, our own commanding officer was gay…’

Dum Dum rolls his eyes, he has to finish off the implication before Morita can spill the beans, ‘They thought they were sneaky…we knew after a week. Us, we were privates, a brigadier, a corporal – but the Captain and the Sarge thought they were being secretive. They snuck off into the woods whenever we weren’t looking. We told them, eventually. Never saw ears turn as pink…’

Monty elbows him, they keep it tame these days.

‘Your commander and his right-hand man?’ The young man sounds baffled.

Before they can reply anything, the phone in his hand goes off. The ringtone is somewhat familiar to them, it’s the song of the ice queen-movie Dum Dum’s great-granddaughter likes so much. _Everything is Frozen no_ w, it used to be something bad, Dum Dum thinks, remembering dark nights without a fire somewhere in Europe.

The young man answers the phone with a grin, but he doesn’t get a single word in. There is shouting from the other end, one or two voices, Dum Dum’s hearing-aids don’t pick up too much. Then, the call is ended abruptly.

Their new friend hasn’t said anything and seems confused, ‘He told me to stay put. Right here. And to not let you leave. Said something about him and his boyfriend coming here.’

Morita huffs out a laugh. They know what happens now. Someone has been more attentive than him in their history lessons, recognised them in the picture and is on their way to get another photo or an autograph.

‘I’m sorry for anything he might say. He doesn’t really have a brain-to-mouth-filter,’ the young man says, ‘he’s probably going to kill me right here, in front of you.’

‘Having friends with no filter is fun,’ Monty laughs, ‘it’s amusing.’

He eyes Dum Dum but again, Dum Dum’s mind drifts off. It does that, sometimes, transports him back in time, shows him painful, happy memories. He remembers Barnes, once the relationship was out in the open. They have heard enough to make them blush, Dernier pretended not to understand English for a week, maybe even more, after Barnes began to talk about Rogers in detail. Luckily for him, Barnes believed him because of a defusing mishap that had happened earlier. Everybody else had gotten first-hand reports about Stevie in the sack.

‘It’s fun until he overshares,’ the young man sighs, ‘Anyway, since we are seemingly waiting for two crazy persons…well, they may be faster than you’d think.’

His eyes focussed on something located behind the bench, ‘Well, here we go.’

There is a whirl, something silvery-metallic rushes past them and launches itself at the young man who has stopped smiling. It takes Dum Dum a moment to process what is happening, he exchanges a look with Morita. Their eyes and minds aren’t as quick as they used to be but it’s enough to notice the newcomer’s metal arm.

‘Holy shit,’ Morita breathes out, his eyes wide, ‘Monty, I’m going to say something you won’t believe – and you are not allowed to hit me for it, okay?’

He clears his throat. For a moment, Dum Dum thinks he’s choked up.

‘Monty – Barnes is alive and seemingly well. He’s currently choking our young jogger with his metal arm.’

Of course Monty hits him, Dum Dum wants to share the sentiment, but something keeps him from it. Instead, he focuses on the two men wrestling a few steps from them.

‘I draw a fucking line at snapping fucking pictures of people looking remotely like the Howlies, Sam Wilson! What the fuck would you do that for? We were about to cut the cake and Steve had to turn away! You made him fucking cry.’

Dum Dum’s head is spinning. He is over ninety years old and he sees things, memories and reality overlap in front of his eyes, leading him to believe in ghosts. Sarge, Bucky Barnes, looking little older than the day he fell from the train trying to catch the monster that had experimented on him, stands right in front of him. His hair is longer, down to his shoulders, his jaw is sharper and _he actually has a metal arm_.

‘You see him too, Morita?’ he rasps out, clutching Monty’s hand, ‘I’ll be damned, but I think he’s real!’

Monty sucks in a breath, ‘You’re telling me that I’m not hearing voices? I mean, nothing sounds as sweet as the Sarge shellac somebody but it’s too good to be true.’

‘Only one way to find out,’ Dum Dum says and reaches for his cane, ‘Oi, Sarge! Leave the man alone!’

He tries to stand up but his knees don’t want to hold his weight up. Within seconds, the man who looks like Barnes is there and helps him up, fingers closed around his arm. Dum Dum doesn’t waste time once he sees his face clearly. It is him, no doubt. He pulls him into his arms, noticing that he’s shorter than him now, stooping and age-worn by the time he has spent without them. He feels the sob in his throat, leans into Barnes and claws at his shirt, feeling the proof of his existence under his shaking fingers.

‘You asshole are alive? How?’ Morita is there, leading Monty’s hands to feel Barnes’ face.

Barnes looks up in surprise as careful fingers explore his features, takes in the Brit’s unseeing eyes and leans into the touch in response. It is the imprint of a gesture they first experienced during the war, Dum Dum remembers how they huddled together around a camp fire, somewhere in France. Bucky had suffered from nightmares after Zola’s lab and all of them had assured him of their presence and company.

It had been a lot of touching and grounding each other.

‘It’s you,’ Monty whispers, voice breaking, ‘Sarge-‘

‘Bucky,’ his voice is softer than it has ever been, ‘I get to be just Bucky now.’

‘Well, Bucky,’ Dum Dum says, ‘you’re certainly as ugly as ever.’

‘There’s only so much seventy years on ice can improve. It’s not plastic surgery, Dugan,’ another voice intercepts their happy reunion, ‘at least that’s what I’ve been told.’

For a moment, Dum Dum believes he’s died and gone to heaven. Bucky smiles at him with a trace of sadness in his eyes, sadness because they have missed out on so much, but then he retreats a few steps and is welcomed back in a tight embrace. It is more intimate than any hug the old men could caress with. No one can hug the Sarge like this – Dum Dum is determined to call him by his title and rank in his head – because there he stands, brightly shining in the midday sun, as tall and broad as he ever was.

Captain Steve Rogers, too, hasn’t changed, Dum Dum thinks and wipes his eyes. There they both are, standing in front of the three old soldiers, their old pals, bathed in sunlight. Monty and Morita hug him, too, they start asking questions because they need to know everything. It seems too much, the circumstances of Bucky’s survival, the how and why needs to be thoroughly discussed and they act like they are running out of time. Dum Dum sees the jogger stand close by, showing a pleased smile.

‘So, which one are you?’ he asks, nodding in the vague direction of the horrible monument Howard’s son built for his team. Like father, like son.

‘The Falcon, sir,’ he answers, ‘I should have recognised you, the moustache really does give it away, in hind-sight. Thank you, by the way. Indirectly, you are the reason for a breakthrough development. Barnes hasn’t left the Tower ever since he came back to Steve. The picture I took and sent to him got him out of a lethargic condition, Steve was the only one who could get through to him.’

Dum Dum looks over to where Bucky seems to curl into Steve. A man of his size looking almost frail in the arms of the man he loved – Dum Dum frowns.

‘What happened to him must’ve been horrible,’ Morita says quietly, ’I’m just glad he’s found the Captain again. They really are inseparable.’

Which is when Dum Dum remembers something Barnes had yelled earlier, something that comes back to him so prominently that he needs to thrust past his old pals. Because they had agreed to leave the park soon, to get back to Morita’s in time for dinner. Because the city is hell, more than usually on this day. Fireworks, picnics and parades, Dum Dum remembers.

‘It’s your birthday,’ he blurts out and examined the Captain’s face.

The blush gave him away. So Barnes had been right, they really had been celebrating back in the tower when the Falcon had interrupted them. It explains Barnes’ reaction. Morita and Monty realise it, too. Their 4th July park time has been interrupted by the man whose birthday had made them laugh when they first heard about it.

The Captain nods, still silent. He tries to shrink next to Barnes but he doesn’t succeed. Dum Dum remembers it all, it is as if the floodgates have been opened. He remembers singing in French bistros, dark pubs in England and Peggy’s lipstick staining Steve’s skin. A day earlier he would have said she kissed him to congratulate him, now he knows that Barnes nicked her lipstick for a play the Howlies put on for their Captain. He remembers Barnes and Dernier in stockings and ill-fitting skirts and the laugh bubbles up inside his throat. He wheezes, tries to calm his friends who seem to worry about him. The only way to let them know is to point at Barnes, and at his lips, mimicking the motion of putting on red pigment.

Steve is the first one to grasp it and his laughter is forceful enough to bend him in half. He clasps Dum Dum’s shoulder and they sink back onto the bench, crying for joy, howling and pointing at Barnes who seems too baffled to realise what is happening.

It takes them a few moments to calm down. Once they can breathe again they sit with their arms around each other’s shoulders. The Captain grins up at Barnes who still can’t follow but seems relieved to see his boyfriend back to almost normal.

‘Thank you,’ Steve turns to the Falcon, ‘honestly, Sam. That must have been the best birthday present possible. You found mine and Bucky’s oldest friends. This is…just amazing.’

They end up in the Stark monstrosity by the time the fireworks explode across the sky, standing in front of a window front with any Avenger in the country that night. Howard’s son seems starstruck for about a fracture of a second when he actually gets to meet the men who fought with Steve during the war and who helped his godmother and father afterwards, and asks them all enough questions to fill a whole day. Dum Dum and Monty promise to answer them all. Morita is too busy trying to call his son to let him know _just where_ he is spending his evening.

An hour later, the three old men have sat down on one of the comfy couches. Neither of them will be able to get up out of them without help but they accept the risk willingly. Across from them, curled into each other, are the Captain and his Bucky. They whisper into each other’s ears, fingers comb through hair and there is a smile, hiding in the corner of the Sarge’s mouth.

It is a beginning, they all tell each other, now they will see each other regularly. They will talk, savour every minute they still have. Although, Monty informs them, he intends to live to onehundredandfifty.

‘Too stubborn to die,’ Bucky mumbles and cuddles into Steve’s side, he is being fed with birthday cake and he seems content. He has even apologized to Sam, the Falcon, for attacking him over what turned out to be a picture of the real Howling Commandoes.

So much has happened, so much they have to talk about. In fact, so much has happened that no one speaks about it, really. They simply don’t know where to start.

They will have enough time to figure out how to start, Dum Dum thinks as he takes the first step into a future where the remaining Howling Commandos are reunited with their leaders and New York City celebrates. Bucky still clings to Steve, they are holding hands, fingers weaving into each other – and yet, he offers his other arm, the metal one, to Monty who leans onto it readily when they eventually end up on one couch, sharing birthday memories from over seventy years ago. Dum Dum smiles. The Avengers listen to stories of stolen alcohol – ‘Borrowed,’ Monty insists – of self-made gifts and vouchers over an extra blanket during long winter nights.

They make new memories that night, with proper cake, gifts and Steve and Bucky not having to hide. Dum Dum has to wipe his eyes again.

Somehow, it all works out perfectly.


End file.
